


These Scars

by ceinno



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, I Don't Even Know, Incoherent bs, Insecure Jaskier | Dandelion, Kaer Morhen, Light Angst, M/M, Mentioned Eskel (The Witcher), Mentioned Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, My Drafts Were Ignored For This, Older Man/Younger Man, Pining, Scars, Tags Are Hard, The Amazing Devil Lyrics, Winter, Witchers Have Feelings (The Witcher), they just snuck in there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23626939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceinno/pseuds/ceinno
Summary: Joining Geralt for winter in Kaer Morhen for the third time, he is once more left to his own devices. He hated being alone.To save him from it all, he finally found himself getting to know the the man behind the few Witchers left. Vesemir showed interest in him, talked to him to fill the chilly hours with distraction. He was wise and full of history. He wasn't afraid to share that with him,And for a helpless romantic like himself, it wasn't hard to fall for a man like that.
Relationships: Jaskier | Dandelion/Vesemir
Comments: 21
Kudos: 305
Collections: Jaskier or Geralt/others (with or w/out eachother)





	These Scars

**Author's Note:**

> I'm very into this ship with no base and I love that. The title makes no sense til the end, and even then its just a smidge. This is an overrated drabble.

> The keep was warm even in the deep chill of winter.

Fires roared under every mantle piece still in use. Touches were more frequent, and the men stuck there in the castle sighed through the night. They all craved the warmth of another, and the most they could gain was sitting together, or piled on top of one another to contain that warmth.

Geralt had brought Jaskier to Kaer Morhen that winter and it was the third time watching the boisterous School of Wolves turn into the yearning, snuggly messes that they were. It was the softest thing to watch and experience. Truly worthy of a lullaby of some sorts, and it most definitely did leave Jaskier humming to himself as the nights grew longer.

And as much as the Witchers craved touch and warm, Jaskier was finding that he too needed another close to him to stave off loneliness. His very being was made with the need to touch and hold. But Witchers were much more careful with Bards. And they for sure didn’t want to show signs of weakness, even to Jaskier of all people.

With Geralt, he dismissed his need for touch if Jaskier wasn’t outright begging for it.

Which was fine, he was used to it. His very best friend wasn’t an affectionate person. He had too many doubts and old walls he had built after getting too close to others, and Jaskier respected that. It still ached all the same… Being left alone was unbearable. Death was kinder than to be left alone.

Then one day, deep in the midst of winter when every step in the castle sent a chill down his bones, Jaskier found himself falling into routine with the head of the Witchers’ pack. Their Alpha so to speak.

Ever since he showed up, he had thought Vesemir disliked him or put up with housing a loudmouth bard. But then the two began talking, of history and books and poetry and music. Things the bard had grown up loving, things the elder had lived through. They connected over these things and after some time, Vesemir began opening up to him. Much quicker than Geralt ever had.

Maybe he could sense how lonely he was. How much it hurt to be left on his own as the others kept to themselves and left the bard to his books and lute. But Jaskier didn’t wish to sing for himself much of late.

And then he was being invited to spend his days with the elder Witcher. To share in dining at his side, to spend the days walking through the castle with him as they talked and examined what was intact and what wasn’t. Being asked to accompany him in the late evenings and nights that stretched out with them sitting by the fire together and reading books.

Everything Vesemir did seemed to be a way to counter the heavy feelings in his heart when left alone.

The most he’d ever been quiet was when Vesemir instructed him to read with him. Even his aches seemed to quiet.

Soon, he found himself silent as the night outside when the man began reading to him instead. It flooded his chest with a warmth he wasn’t quite sure he had felt before.

Someone like Jaskier who fell into love quickly and deeply, knew what it was like to love. With Vesemir though he found himself fumbling, flustered and confused on how to handle it. The man was quite older, even more so than Geralt or the others. He had lived long, had seen so much. Jaskier could only compare himself to a child for what the other might see him as.

And to start falling for someone he had come to trust like a father- someone he ached to please and admired? He should just throw their whole relationship away. No longer would Vesemir look at him with such a soft gaze if he knew the things running through the bard’s head.

So he turned to poetry as he was wont to do.

He filled pages and pages of his notebooks, the blank ones Geralt had bought for him before they set out for Kaer Morhen. Jaskier found himself writing every second he could sneak a chance. Sometimes right in front of Vesemir too, hoping the Witcher never noticed it was when Jaskier had spent his time staring after him.

Lines and sentences and paragraphs dedicated to the man, the Wolf of Old. The man- the Witcher who’s gaze seemed to spill with stories of time lost and gone. It made a romantic bone in Jaskier ache everytime he looked at him. To know Vesemir held so much within him, that he had to live with everything weighing atop him.

When he wasn’t at Vesemir’s side, he found himself pouring over every poem and sonnet, feeling that none of it could capture what he truly felt for the first time in his life. He was getting older, could feel it, but it hurt to think how young he was to the man he had grown so fond of.

A day then came where it all but swept from his mind. Eskel had asked Jaskier to head up to Vesemir’s room. The old man hadn’t come out yet and nobody wanted to face the eldest Witcher in case he got mad with them. So of course they sent the soft human instead. Typical.

With a sigh, but a happy buzz running through him, Jaskier headed down the hall on the lower level of the castle. Vesemir wasn’t far from the entrance since he felt so obligated to protect his boys. Everything he did was dedicated and deliberate like that. He had lived long enough to know what he wanted and needed to do.

At the door was where the buzz turned from excitement to nervousness though. In all his time at Kaer Morhen, Jaskier had never seen inside Vesemir’s room. He swallowed the thought down though and knocked briskly. What was the point in worrying. It only made himself seem suspicious when he had crafted himself to seem so… Spontaneous and carefree.

The gruff voice he knew all too well called for him to enter through the door and Jaskier hummed as he slipped inside quickly.

“Vesemir, sir, your boys said you hadn’t come out yet, so they very well sent me alone to come check on you-”

His voice cutting off struck so suddenly that the elder looked back to him, brow raised from Jaskier going dead silent. But who could blame him really. Blue eyes soared over Vesemir’s frame as Jaskier’s tongue tried to catch up with his brain.

“Ah, now that I haven’t seen before,” he stated dumbly.

Vesemir huffed and began rotating his arm back with a low groan. The scars littered up it were jagged and large. So many overlapping eachother… Even Geralt wasn’t as nearly as cover with history. Jaskier found himself stepping closer with his head empty.

With an outstretched hand, he finally stopped when the man’s eyes stared him down.

“Pardon- uh it’s just…” Why was the wordsmith so suddenly lost for words. “you probally know this, but chamomile is good for scars like that. Well, that and aches and pains. I have some right here if you wouldn’t mind-”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Vesemir cut in, saving Jaskier from babbling til his tongue fell out.

With a soft sound in his throat, the man took the knapsack he carried off his shoulder and set it along the empty space of the bed. What was left of it, he sat down upon to settle beside Vesemir and began taking out his things. His notebook was tossed up onto the furs while the small wood pot of chamomile he dug out and opened to dip his fingers in.

“Ah… Come here then? If that’s alright.”

His voice had grown so soft, and his eyes were frozen, stuck to keep on gazing over Vesemir’s torso and arms. Some of the scars dipped down his stomach, trailing further past the waistband of his trousers. Beautiful.

Vesemir gave a hum, before answering the once again too quiet bard. “Yes,” he murmured. “it’s alright, little lark.”

Then he shifted closed, body close enough so Jaskier could begin rubbing his hands on him. The oil was soft and smelled sweet, just dull enough for Witchers to be appeased. As he smoothed it over the scars, easing the rough and weathered skin, Jaskier found that he was going slower than intended. He couldn’t help it as he admired his fill.

Lips parted as he gave a little sigh.

The love in his chest wasn’t stopping, and it ached deeper and further as it dug canyons in his heart. As it carved itself a place to rest inside him. Deeper the well went until he was sure there wasn’t a bottom.

When he asked Vesemir to turn some, to reach his other side better, he felt it suddenly burn inside the hole Jaskier had buried his feelings in.

Vesemir was kissing him.

A hand still stick on his bicep, Jaskier tensed until he found his grip tightening with surprise and want. He wanted to kiss him til his body surely broke.

But then he was pulling away. Oh how unfair. To leave Jaskier aching like this. He urged closer, oiled hand still on Vesemir’s arm and his heart racing with every inch he drew closer.

“Please. Don’t run.”

“I’m not running from, you lark,” Vesemir whispered back.

His eyes shined with that old ache Jaskier recognised far too well by now. The younger’s touch eased him closer. Their foreheads brushed.

“Be good to me then,” Jaskier begged of him. “Be good to me. Don’t think I’ll push you away.”

And Vesemir should’ve known by now he’d never be able to. Not when Jaskier had felt himself fall deeper than he’d ever fallen before. If he was to reject him the poor bard would surely break like humans are wont to due. But Vesemir didn’t want that, not for his little lark who’s whole being craved history and music and poetry and love to feel that life was worth it.

The man who wanted so much and was so happy just to receive what he could get.

Vesemir admired that for the short time he had known him, and suddenly the fast pacing years and the scars that were the only proof of his exsistence had stopped scaring him when it came to this _boy_.

“Be good to me,” he heard Jaskier beg again all the same.

The words hidden behind it were so loud to the man who’d lived far too many lives.

_I don’t care how long, love me now._

His thumbed smoothed over his soft skin as Vesemir cupped his cheek then. And their foreheads touched closer as he found himself leaning into this foolish, beautiful bard who didn’t run from his touch it scars. The man who ached for others, and needed the feel of someone else.

His lips found Jaskier’s.

Because he knew…

“The kindest thing… Is to never leave you alone."


End file.
